Stuff like this doesn't phase me anymore. The rewriting of history has been taken to heights that would make stalin blush. I actually like the fact that naive westerners are going to Turkey for holidays. They are seeing what liars these people are first hand. When I went two years ago I interupted many tours giving the real history. Some people were annoyed but I was surprised how many listened. Today no one cares of Christianity so they can get away with a lot of this. But they are also guilty of commiting blashphemy against the secular world. When I was there they claimed Capadocia is where star wars is filmed. Of course most westerners have never heard of the crusades or Aghia sofia, but don't lie about star wars. It was hilarious how almost everyone caught on to what kind of liars they were with that lie.

Posted by: pissedoffcanadian at June 13, 2006 10:28 PM

This seems an apropos way of describing this kind of censorship:

"Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort, wo man Bücher Verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen." (That was only a prelude. Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too.) --Heinrich Heine

Posted by: Hulegu Khan at June 13, 2006 10:57 PM

Just another small example of how Islam seeks to eventually eradicate everything non-Islamic from this world.

Posted by: alexon at June 13, 2006 11:15 PM

The government denies it has an Islamic agenda.

So let me get this straight. A government responsible for managing tens of millions of Moslems has no Islamic agenda.

Now, I've read my Marx.and fellow traveller Karl never travelled to Asia Minor, so how is this not yet another Erdogan non sequitur?

Welcome to EUrabia, you nutty Turks you. Those fat welfare checks will be great. More daytime for you guys to pursue your Quick-Breed demographic Jihad doggy style. WOOF!

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at June 14, 2006 12:32 AM

Already statues have been vandalized by Muslims in public places, and in churches, in both France and Italy. The destruction of the monuments and artifacts and hence part of the histories of Infidels, that so many Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and Buddhists in the Middle East, in North Africa, in the Balkans and southeastern Europe, in Central Asia and Hindustan and in southeast Asia know well, now has come to Western Europe. What will happen in Italy, where every street corner in Rome has something that could be damaged by determined Muslims? What will happen to the churches, to the frescoes (including that which Muslims have been taped planning to destroy in Bologna), to the paintings in the Louvre, the Prado, the National Gallery, the Rijksmuseum, the Alte Pinakothek, the Uffizi? Has any organized assocation of museum curators, or of art scholars, even dared to think of organizing a conference on the protection of art in Europe, and the prohibitions of Islam (against sculpture of all kinds, against paintings of living creatures)?

Anyone at all thinking about this, and contacting others? Philippe de Montebello or J. Carter Brown or Anne d'Harnoncourt or any other museum directors or retired directors, or any celebrated collectors, or those who might join a group to Save Venice or Save Florence or Save Art here and there and everywhere, including those who fund or staff foundations that will pay to rescue Roman mosaics from the rising man-made flood that covered Zeugma, or the Temples near Aswan, but have never before had to confront the problem of Islam and how its adherents threaten Western art, as they once not only threatened, but managed to destroy, so much of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Greco-Bactrian monuments, stupas, manuscripts, temples, artifacts, to erase, or to appropriate as their own, the signs and symbols of anything pre-Islamic or non-Islamic.

This matter cannot wait. Raising the matter publicly, noisily, so that everyone is made aware of the problem, so that Muslims themselves (the same ones who pretended to be outraged by the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas but in truth helped the Taliban, as those Pakistani and Saudi engineers did, and were secretly pleased at the result) are put on the defensive, and forced either to admit to, or to change, their ways.

Raising the issue will offend Muslims -- or at least, many will feign indignation. But why? The issue is real. The prohibition is real -- any Muslim can find it in Qaradawi's handy guide to what is halal and what haram. Muslims have been acting on those prohibitions for 1350 years. Now they exist, in large numbers, within the Lands of the Infidels, the Bilad al-kufr. This poses many problems for Infidels, their laws, customs, understandings, political and social institutions, physical security -- and for their art.

Time to bring it all out into the open. Who will be brave enough to discuss it? If not the heads of American or European museums (who, for all I know, are eager to obtain Arab money for some pathetic "Islamic art" wing and as craven in their pursuit of such money, and hence in their willingness to remain silent on all sorts of questions, as college and university presidents whose every statement is cleared with the Development Office, that beating heart of the modern university) then who?

It could be one of those scholars of art history, grateful for the training he received, perhaps at the Warburg or at the Courtauld, in the days when that instruction would have been given by some unforgettable, irreplaceable refugee from another totalitarian belief-system, that which ruled Germany and almost wrecked European civilization.

There is one celebrated art historian whose clashes with the Belle Arti in Italy have been based not on any deliberate damage inflicted, but rather on the unintentional damage that may have been caused by well-intentioned cleaning that may have removed what the artists in question (Michelangelo, Jacopo della Quercia) foresaw, and intended to be, the pleasing effects created by the patina of time on the Sistine Chapel, on the gisant statue of Ilaria del Carretto in Lucca.

So perhaps someone will kindly pass on this posting to Professor James Beck of Columbia. He at once would grasp the gravity of the problem posed by large numbers of Islam's adherents now settled deep within the lands of Western Europe, and the threats their belief-system poses -- naturally poses -- to the art, to the monuments and artifacts, of Western civilization, from classical antiquity through the Middle Ages through the Italian Renaissance, right up to the present (how would Muslim students, on a field trip to a French museum, react to being forced to look at one of Balthus's girls? Or Matisse's North African "Orientalism"? As the boys from the Belle Arti, and some Japanese businessmen who were awarded proprietary rights in the Cappella Sistina reproductions have discovered to their own great dismay, nothing and nobody intimidates James Beck.

If he won't head this effort, at least he will have good ideas as to someone who would.

Posted by: Hugh at June 14, 2006 12:41 AM

Wow, shades of the Taliban's blowing up of the buddhist statues in afganistan.

500 year old inscriptions aren't historically relevant? in whose twisted mind?

"Inde deus abest" is right, God doesn't exist there at all. I don't think God has anything to do with islamofascists.

Duty, Honor, Country
(in THAT order)
Rowane

Posted by: Rowane at June 14, 2006 12:47 AM

Another exhibit on why Turkey should not be allowed into the EU. There was a time when Turkey held a major chunk of what is now the EU.

Check the 1848 map of Europe under the treaty of Westphalia on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Westphalia

They do not simply want to be in the EU. They want all “their” lands back. It is the law of Islam.

Hugh’s call to rescue artwork from the clutches of Islam is a forewarning – if the few guardians of Western Civilization left in Europe do not jump in and act to ship those works to the USA for safe keeping, they will go the way of the Nazi book-burnings of the 1930s. That probably also goes for books again too.

The handwriting is on the wall. It is being written by the Islamists and the EU elites who ostrich-like have their heads in the sand, and by the European peoples, who do not seem to have the will to bring the EU and their national governments to heel.

But it is not just art that we must round up. We need to get Euro governments to understand that the US cannot tolerate their possession of nuclear arms if they are going to allow Islam to take over Europe. The nuclear problems we are having with Iran right now are a microcosm of what these issues could become if we have to substitute Europe for Iran as the No. 1 nuclear threat to the West.

America has to face the fact that Europe is likely to go down the tubes, and the European peoples mostly do not seem to care. They have lost their roots. They will probably accept Sharia law rather than fight for their freedoms.

America spent a lot of blood saving this continent from itself, twice. Not to mention resources and financing. Was it all for naught?

Posted by: Jimmy Bones at June 14, 2006 2:06 AM

I wonder how they explain it to themselves; this wanting to destroy antiquities from pre-Islamic cultures? What blank-mindedness. What lack of imagination or interest.

Question: have the Egyptian Muslims destroyed any ancient Egyptian works of art showing people? There are thousands of wonderful drawings, painting and sculptures not counting the famous ones like King Tut's Golden mask. Does anyone know if those treasures are at risk too?

Posted by: corax at June 14, 2006 2:56 AM

"I wonder how they explain it to themselves; this wanting to destroy antiquities from pre-Islamic cultures? What blank-mindedness. What lack of imagination or interest." (from above)

Geee, what a dreamer...
My dear person, you are dealing with MUSLIMS !!!,
are you waking up?, or doyou need a few more discussions with these folks about their lack of imagination or interest??

Posted by: cosmicAvenger at June 14, 2006 4:43 AM

How many mosques are still standing in Athens? Is Ottoman history taught correctly and accepted in Christian countries that were part of the Ottoman Empire for 500 years?

Posted by: Scyth at June 14, 2006 4:49 AM

I have no doubt that ancient Egyptian have been, are being and will be destroyed in Islamic Egypt.

Here in the Land of Israel, Western travelers discovered a Jewish inscription in Hebrew and Greek [or Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek] high up on a pillar in the great mosque of Gaza. This building was in fact built as a Crusader Cathedral. The Crusaders reused columns from ancient synagogues in their construction work. The column with the Jewish inscription was erected upside down high up in the cathedral. The Muslims who have used the building as a mosque since the Crusader defeat, probably did not notice it. It was copied by a Western researcher. [see Herschel Shanks, Judaism in Stone]. More recently the inscription was erased, as seems about to happen in Turkey.

Posted by: Eliyahu at June 14, 2006 4:58 AM

@Scyth

1n 1972 Germany had TWO mosques, in 2006 Germany has over 2400 mosques !!!
get the drift??

Posted by: cosmicAvenger at June 14, 2006 5:01 AM

Just a quick word to mention, on this matter, the fact that Turkey recently made a "tourism promotion campaign" in Belgium. The poster was quite funny, because it praised "the treasures of turkish multicultural heritage " but the only, typically turkish element shown was... a whirling dervish. Almost all of the other 11 pictures showed Hittits, Greco-roman, or Byzantine items... So much for the Turkish contribution to culture. Oh yes, there was a mosk... looking very much like byzantine church... and when you search for the architect's biography, you discovered he was one of those kids taken in the "devshirme" abduction scheme...

Well, the funny thing was also to take a look on the tourism web site (link given by the poster). History of the country? Begins with Ottoman empire of course. No page for jahiliyya period (the >3000 years on the basis of which they try to "sell" the country to ignorant tourists). But numerous web pages on the "armenian allegations" (re. genocide)...

I won't even tell you about the other campaing, praising Turkey as "The most beautiful country in EUROPE". The bigger the lie.... yuck!

Anyway, if you want to read my short essay on this (in French, sorry!), or see the pictures, it is on http://www.libertyvox.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=25551#25551 ; and a pdf version is there: http://rapidshare.de/files/21415585/Promotion_Tourisme_en_Turquie.pdf.html )

Posted by: Pistache at June 14, 2006 5:03 AM

the two greatest historic buildings in Turkey are: The Hagia Sophia was a byzanthine cathedral of Constantinople, conviniently re-used as an "Ottoman mosque". The second is right across the plaza, the Blue Mosque, or Sultan Ahmed Mosque, the greatest mosque of the Ottoman empire, designed, engineered, and built by a Kroatian.
So much for Ottoman culture....

Posted by: cosmicAvenger at June 14, 2006 5:14 AM

"...500 year old inscriptions aren't historically relevant? in whose twisted mind..."

From a posting above.

No, they are not relevant.

500 or 5000 years:

If it doesn't help to manifest Islam, it is irrelevant. Children blown up in a war-zone? Irrelevant: they are 'martyrs' ...
and if infidels think it matters, good.
Whatever helps to advance Islam: Better!
We can see it every day: Death & destruction, the most shameless lies, the most bigoted perversion, it doesn't matter: If it helps to advance Islam it is good.

Just look at the post by the Mohammedan poster above:

"How many mosques are still standing in Athens? Is Ottoman history taught correctly and accepted in Christian countries that were part of the Ottoman Empire for 500 years?"

He cares for Islam and more Islam and ONLY Islam. He doesn't accept that his presence is only tolerated in the west, that he benefits from western civilization immeasurably, undeservedly, ungrateful, hateful and full of resentment. All he's got is Islam, his cure for everything, all he knows, and there are millions more like him ready to wreck havoc all around the world, to kill, stab, slash and burn in the name of Islam...

What a dreadful existence!

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at June 14, 2006 5:15 AM

Mecca...'Inde deus abest'?

Posted by: SCV at June 14, 2006 6:07 AM

Interesting just how we term such behaviour "vanadalism" and yet the historical vandals did destroy but out of ignorance and contempt for the civilisation that they so easily overwhelmed.

However, it did not stop this civilisation from actually subdueing the Vandals peacefully as they eventually took up its values themeselves(unfortunately for North Africa).

However ALL Islamic vandalism is from DESIGN and is the ultimate intent of every "true believer".

Perhaps we should apologise to the historical vandals and rename that behaviour "islamicism".

I have been waiting for some time for islamicism to run riot with that most poltheistics of religions: ancient Egypt and am curious as to why no fanatical lunatic has yet tried to destroy the museums holding ancient egfyptian artifacts.
( in looking at the depth and colour of ancient Egyptian theology, it makes that of islam seem so grey and foreboding by comparison. But then again, once the relgion gained too much power via its priests, we had the same dogged fanatacism.
Alexander and Caesar were taken by both the history and the culture of Egypt and refused to do overmuch to destroy it. Not so Islam who turned Egypt in a cross between a sewer and a brothel with the only traceline being through the Copts who refused to die out and so preserved a cultural line back to the pharoahs.)

Posted by: Zathras at June 14, 2006 6:35 AM

Shouldn't UNESCO, and Kofi Annan be interested in this? What are they doing about it?

Posted by: Voltaire at June 14, 2006 6:58 AM

Goes to show that Islam has NO respect for other faiths, period.

Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at June 14, 2006 7:48 AM

BigCatGirl,

I think it is not only about "other faith", but rather "other cultures". Pre-islamic time and the people who lived then seem to deserve only contempt.

Posted by: Pistache at June 14, 2006 7:52 AM

By the same logic islam should be wiped off the face of the earth because it "has no historic value".

Posted by: Bohemond_1069 at June 14, 2006 8:21 AM

Just think of all the history in the making the Muslims are making by destroying history.

March 11, 2001: We destroy Buddhist statues in Afganistan
September 11, 2001: The day we destroyed WTC

and on and on and on.

Posted by: JanuaryMan at June 14, 2006 9:06 AM

Letting these psychos into the European Union is the best idea ever! They're not European and they hate European culture, so obviously they should be a member of the European Union!

Posted by: Jesus Christ Supercop at June 14, 2006 10:10 AM

Surely the nations with the most at immediate risk, Italia, France, Deutschland, have local laws and ordinances that prohibit actions like public urination, vandalism, etc. Hell, such activities could even be construed as "hate crimes" when committed to intimidate specific populations (if ethnic Europeans are viewed as being able to be victims of hate crime). In New York City The police initiated a zero tolerance policy that tarageted petty criminals and made the city much more livable for the majority of its citizens simply by enforcing laws already on the books. It is a question of will on a local level. Europeans who do not like to see their cultural heritage destroyed should bitch like crazy to their LOCAL politicians and insist on strict enforcement. Non-citizens who are convicted should be deported immediately upon the completion of their sentence. Local authorities already have the power to stop this type of attack in its tracks. They lack the spine to do so.

Posted by: MP at June 14, 2006 12:11 PM

Where I live in the UK, there use to be a fine church which bells use to ring on Saturday and Sunday morning. Just a few years ago the whole area was invaded my peaceful Muslims and the Christians converted or packed their bags and slugged their hooks, but the well built church has now turned into a quite good looking mosque and instead of the bell ring on the weekend it is know the Azaan proudly calling people to pray although its not five times a day yet but will we are still working on it.

The point I want to make is, Islam is taking over and is not giving an option to the infidels. So either Muslims convert what is useful to Islam (including churches, etc) or simply erase what is scrap and point less.

wake up

Posted by: Khalid Bin Waleed at June 15, 2006 10:41 AM

I'm awake Mr. bin Waleed, and will never be your Dhimmi

Posted by: MP at June 15, 2006 1:21 PM

We don't need those stupid towers which people scream from and ugly domes in our civilised countries, they have no historical or cultural value. A few lbs of C4 should do the trick. >:)

Posted by: IceDragon at June 17, 2006 3:53 AM

Dear all,

I have read your comments on this news and I was petrified..

The news has been misunderstood amongst all of you since the major argument isn't translated into english in the summary above. The argument (by the way this argument was proven to be true today) was that the previous director of the museum somehow decided to type these words (inde deus abest) and hired a technician to that 13 years ago. The technician has been deciphered and this case will be investigated very soon and the all who is responsible will be punished.

But apart from the fact that national press can be even more misleading overseas, I was very much concerned with your reaction against Moslem countries. Although this is a jihad watcher blog, you still need to be fully informed before you curse, damn and whatsoever.. Also, I think those who curse "jihad", have the same intensions with terrorists who call themselves Moslems (in fact this is not so). Why should you kill people, or bomb their temples? Are you not acting just like those so-called Christians who killed millions of non-believers years ago (who burnt women whom they thought were witches?)

P.S: The details of this fake news can be found at http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/news/377200.asp written in Turkish.

Posted by: comkedi at June 19, 2006 5:00 AM